Joseph Rheinberger - Suites for Organ, Violin and Cello (Christopher Herrick; Paul Barritt; Richard Lester)

Information

Composer: Joseph Rheinberger

• (01) Suite for organ, violin and cello, Op. 149
• (05) Six Pieces for violin and organ, Op. 150

Christopher Herrick, organ
Paul Barritt, violin
Richard Lester, cello

Date: 1996/2005
Label: Hyperion
https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDH55211

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Review

If Saint-Saëns has been called the French Mendelssohn, in a curious turnabout, Joseph Rheinberger (1839-1901) might be called the German Saint-Saëns. Both composers were accomplished organists for whom the instrument played a major role in their professional careers. Both composers labored in the field of opera, neither, however - notwithstanding Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila - with much success. Both composers found their main calling in instrumental, chamber, and, in Saint-Saëns's case, orchestral music. Both composers were exceptionally gifted with a muse for voluptuous melody and affective harmony, and both were prolific in their output. But perhaps most significant, both composers were considered, for their time, arch-conservatives resistant to the progressive trends in the music of their day. How ironic then that Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila should have been criticized as being too Wagnerian (he was too German for the French), and that Rheinberger's lifelong love affair with the organ should have been seen as obeisance to the Franco-Belgian organ tradition (he was too French for the Germans). Most of Rheinberger's music today lives at the fringes of the standard repertoire, but he is largely remembered as an important teacher whose students included Humperdinck, Wolf-Ferrari, and Wilhelm Furtwängler.

The current release on Hyperion's budget Helios label originally appeared in 1996 as CDA 66883. The substitution of organ for piano in duo chamber works with violin is a bit unusual, though to Rheinberger it must have seemed perfectly logical and natural. The Suite is, in all but name, a formally fashioned four-movement work, which, in its employment of violin, cello, and organ, and in its overlapping imitative entries, is less suggestive of a standard piano trio than it is a Baroque trio sonata. The opening melody will not only captivate you, it will immediately reinforce the analogy to Saint-Saëns.

The Baroque suite or sonata da camera idea is further advanced in the Six Pieces, though Rheinberger offers his own unique arrangement of movements by placing the Gigue in the middle and the Overture at the end. Considerations of formal organization aside, the piece comes across as an updated 19th-century model of 17th-century Italian instrumental chamber music style - the famously souped-up version of Vitali's Chaconne comes to mind. Still, the pouring forth from Rheinberger's seemingly inexhaustible reservoir of songful and soulful melody is irresistible.

These were wonderful performances when they first appeared, and though a more recent identical coupling has been released on the Cantate label, it is hard to imagine Barritt, Lester, and Herrick being bettered. If you missed it the first time around, here's your opportunity to pick this up, and at a bargain price.

-- Jerry Dubins, FANFARE

More reviews:
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/rheinberger-suites-for-organviolin-and-cello
http://www.classical-music.com/review/rheinberger-5

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Josef Rheinberger (17 March 1839, in Vaduz – 25 November 1901, in Munich) was an organist and composer, born in Liechtenstein and lived most of his life in Germany. The stylistic influences on Rheinberger ranged from Brahms to Mendelssohn, Schumann, Schubert and, above all, Bach. A distinguished teacher, his students included Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, Engelbert Humperdinck, Richard Strauss and Wilhelm Furtwängler. Rheinberger was also a prolific composer. His works include twelve Masses, a Requiem, a Stabat Mater, several operas, symphonies, chamber music, and choral works.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Rheinberger

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Christopher Herrick (born 23 May 1942 in Bletchley, Buckinghamshire) is an English organist. He studied music at the Exeter College, Oxford and the Royal College of Music. Herrick was assistant organist at St Paul's Cathedral from 1967 to 1974, and became an organist at Westminster Abbey in 1974. In 1984 he embarked upon a solo career as a concert organist and toured worldwide. He met Ted Perry, the owner-director of Hyperion records in the same year and proposed an album that led to the Organ Fireworks series. Herrick has also recorded the complete organ works of J. S. Bach on 16 CDs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Herrick
http://www.christopherherrick.org/

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Paul Barritt was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He studied with Jaroslav Vanecek at the Royal College of Music in London and subsequently with Orrea Pernel, Sandor Végh and Salvatore Accardo. Barritt has a varied repertoire comprising the standard classical violin concertos but also encompassing works for violin and orchestra by Martinu, Frank Martin, Lutoslawski, Takemitsu, Schnittke and Poul Ruders. As well as giving violin and piano recitals and recordings, and frequent chamber music concerts, he regularly appears as soloist and director with the ECO. Barritt plays a Sanctus Serphim violin made c1737.

http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/a.asp?a=A331

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Richard Lester is one of leading British cellists and chamber musicians. He studied in London at the RCM with Amaryllis Fleming and in Germany with Johannes Goritzki. He was a member of the award-winning Florestan Trio, a founder-member of the ensemble Domus, a member of Hausmusik and the London Haydn Quartet. He was for many years principal with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and has been principal cello with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe since 1989. He has made over 40 highly acclaimed recordings, twice winning the Gramophone award for best chamber-music.
http://www.rcm.ac.uk/strings/professors/profile/?id=5041

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